1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to weather-dependent seasonal work, and more particularly to systems and methods for providing financial controls related to weather-based seasonal work.
2. Background and Related Art
Weather-based or weather-dependent seasonal work is necessary in many areas. For example, in many locations, it can be necessary to provide for landscaping and lawn care to ensure that a business remains presentable to its customers at all times. Similarly, in locations where snowfalls occur, it can be necessary to provide for snow removal, ice control, and the like to ensure that customers of a business are able to access the business and/or are not subject to dangerous conditions while accessing the business. Thus, it can be important for businesses to ensure that weather-based seasonal work or weather-dependent seasonal work is performed properly and in a timely fashion.
The performance of weather-dependent or weather-based work can be quite costly to a business. In many instances, however, the performance of weather-based or weather-dependent work is simply one of the costs of doing business; if the weather-based or weather-dependent work is not performed, the loss to business is greater than the cost of performing the weather-dependent work. Regardless of the necessity of performing the work, businesses often wish to obtain the benefit of less-costly manners of performing such work. Costs can be reduced in several ways, and one of the ways in which costs can be reduced is through consolidating contracts for performance of the work, such as at multiple business locations together and through competitive bidding processes.
While contracting for performance of weather-dependent work at multiple locations through a competitive bidding process has potential to significantly reduce costs associated with performance of the weather-dependent work, there are significant hurdles that have traditionally prevented adoption of such practices. One such hurdle is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, publicly-traded businesses that incur material costs must have adequate controls in place to ensure that incurred costs are proper and are properly accounted for. Meanwhile, costs that are not material do not have such requirements.
Large publicly-traded businesses that might wish to take advantage of cost savings by consolidating their weather-dependent work have found the requirements imposed by the Sarbanes-Oxley Act make it difficult to proceed with such consolidation. Instead, the businesses have allowed the weather-dependent work to be performed piecemeal under the direction and discretion of local divisions of the business. In this way, the weather-dependent work for each location of the business is handled locally and therefore does not amount to a material cost subject to the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.
For example, a national bank having many branches commonly allows the manager of each branch to contract for any weather-dependent work necessary at the branch. As the local costs for performing weather-dependent work are handled locally, the cost is not deemed a material cost to the national bank, and the controls and reporting requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act are not implicated. Even though the national bank avoids the difficulty and cost of compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley, the national bank essentially trades that cost for a different one inherent in the system for local handling of local work. Specifically, the national bank lacks oversight and control over the locally-performed work. For example a local bank manager may hire a friend or relative to perform the weather-dependent work at rates higher than necessary. Additionally, the national bank forgoes the cost savings that could potentially be achieved through consolidation of the work.
Even in instances where a national business might be willing to comply with the requirements of Sarbanes-Oxley and obtain weather-dependent work on a consolidated basis, the weather-dependent work industry is so fractured as to make consolidation extremely difficult to achieve in a way that provides any real cost benefit. Much weather-dependent work (e.g. snow removal, lawn care) is performed by local small businesses, often on a seasonal basis. Many such small businesses only operate or offer services during certain times of the year, or are involved in other services during an off-season for the weather-dependent work. In some instances, weather-dependent work necessary in one season must be obtained from a different source than the source of weather-dependent work necessary in another season. The net result is that any potential consolidation of weather-dependent work is extremely complex. An entity wishing to bid on weather-dependent work on a large scale is therefore required to construct its bid based on a bottom-up pricing model, obtaining sub-bids from many individual sources and constructing the overall bid accordingly.